Everything and more
by David Foster Wallace · first published 2003
83% recommend14% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Accessible history of infinity centered on Cantor, with math history that clarifies ideas like epsilon-delta limits and calculus. Suits readers wanting rigor without a textbook, including math-curious non-experts.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"A gripping guide to the modern taming of the infinite."—The New York Times. With a new introduction by Neal Stephenson. Is infinity a valid mathematical property or a meaningless abstraction? David Foster Wallace brings his intellectual ambition and characteristic bravura style to the story of how mathematicians have struggled to understand the infinite, from the ancient Greeks to the nineteenth-century mathematical genius Georg Cantor's counterintuitive discovery that there was more than one kind of infinity. Smart, challenging, and thoroughly rewarding, Wallace's tour de force brings i
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Looking for good books to read. Any recommendations? I liked these: Everything and More, David Foster Wallace Gödel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter Collected Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges In Praise of Idleness, Bertrand Russell Antifragile, Nassim Taleb The Long Way, Bernard Moitessier…
on “Ask HN: What are some good books?” ↗…of picking a rational number as 1/infinity, because for every rational number there are infinity irrational numbers that we also could have chosen. David Foster Wallace had a really good book called Everything and More where he explored the history of infinity. Might be of interest to you.
on “Physicists attempt to prove the Riemann hypothesis” ↗…know) about what a frequent flyer programme is and about that time 15 years ago when they hit silver status. It's a very unfair comparison, but if you want to read amazing technical writing, try reading "Everything and more: A compact history of Infinity" by David Foster Wallace. Or contrast PG's essay with Umberto Eco's "How to write a Thesis"[2]. It's hard to escape the conclusion that PG's writing would not survive a…
on “An interview with Paul Graham on writing” ↗if you want to get your head around infinity note that one of the greatest novelists of our time, david foster wallace, wrote a great book about it and cantor: "everything and more". on a more sensational note, also note that wallace and cantor, both geniuses, also both committed suicide.
on “The Hilbert Hotel” ↗…be between Coetzee (precision) vs. Wallace (verbosity). I strenuously suggest you avoid Wallace even though I think both authors are amazing. :) Having enjoyed Wallace's non-fiction book on infinity, "Everything and More", I recommended it to a work mate (also a programmer) and he hated it. Upon reflection, I think he has similar tastes to you and would probably not like GEB either. Out of interest, what style of fiction…
on “Ask HN: Experiences with 'Gödel, Escher, Bach' (GEB)?” ↗…actually goes through the effort of presenting proofs of the theorems. Highly recommended. As some recreational reading, less suiting the original request, I very much enjoyed David Foster Wallace's 'Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity' (http://www.amazon.com/Everything-More-Compact-History-Infini...). DFW is not for everyone, but I enjoyed it a lot. Maybe just check it out of the library first to see…
on “Ask HN: Math books like SICP?” ↗Don't make the mistake of confusing the text in Infinite Jest with David Foster Wallace's actual understanding of the Mean Value Theorem. (Read Everything and More, his really awesome book on the mathematical history of calculus, if you need a demonstration.)
on ““The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]” ↗…doing any math with my brain that I'm not required to do (so, no brain math since college). Just recently I've been picking up some books about the history and philosophy of math like Fermat's Enigma and Everything and More (I'm a sucker for DFW, so this was a no-brainer when math was back on my radar). Now every evening I find myself saying out loud, "why the hell didn't the math teachers explain it like this." For example,…
on “How to Study Mathematics (2017)” ↗I really liked Introduction to Graph Theory by Trudeau. No upper level math required, but it got rigorous and fun at times. Mostly spatial reasoning. David Foster Wallace wrote Everything and More which included a lot of math history, while driving into transfinite numbers and set theory. Kindle typesetting is generally terrible for math, but was completely readable in this case. The forward by…
on “Classic Mathematics Books for Lifelong Learners” ↗If you're looking for a book that's both easy and stimulating to read, but that discusses a lot of mathematics in reasonable detail, I highly recommend the novelist David Foster Wallace's Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity. It's probably the best book on mathematics I've read. It's not a textbook the way the Feynman lectures are, but it's stimulating and a good read. Other books mentioned…
on “Ask HN: Are there books for mathematics like Feynman's lectures on physics?” ↗While it's not as well-known or popular at large as, say Infinite Jest, I think that the readership here might enjoy "Everything and more" by David Foster Wallace. It's a history of mathematics around late 1800s and early 1900s surrounding George Cantor and the discovery of uncountable sets, foundations of mathematics, etc. It's both informative…
on “'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions' (2008)” ↗Yeah, this was a VERY controversial subject for a long time. Maybe even still today! David Foster Wallace's Everything and More was an enjoyable history of the topic. I think the rebuttal to the author's "write all the primes down, you can't" would be something like "tell me how many numbers there are between 0 and 1." I'd die…
on “Do Infinite Pencils Exist?” ↗…isn't one official list of "what is a number". Real mathematicians will consider anything a number temporarily if it's convenient for them. For anyone who cares, I recommend David Foster Wallace's book "Everything and More" for a great history of mathematicians' thoughts about infinity.
on “Infinity is Not a number” ↗Everything and More, by David Foster Wallace (history of inifinity) Lord of Light, by Zelazny (fiction, but transcendent) The Trial of Socrates, by I.F. Stone (makes the case that Socrates was a genuine threat to his society)…
on “Ask HN: Books That Gratify One's Intellectual Curiosity?” ↗If you're interested in infinity, David Foster Wallace's book Everything and More is an entertaining, witty introduction. Edit - I'd love to know why someone downvoted this.
on “The Hilbert Hotel” ↗